Copy Protection: Difference between revisions

Content added Content deleted
VisualWikitext
No edit summary
No edit summary
Line 82: Line 82:
** The original Starflight had the code wheel. Starflight 2 had a fold out star map and a viewer to isolate 3 inch sections of the map. The game would then ask you the number of certain colored stars in the 3 in section once you placed the viewer at certain coordinates.
** The original Starflight had the code wheel. Starflight 2 had a fold out star map and a viewer to isolate 3 inch sections of the map. The game would then ask you the number of certain colored stars in the 3 in section once you placed the viewer at certain coordinates.
* Infogrames' original ''[[Alone in the Dark]]'' series had this, and notably ratcheted it up in the second game. The first required two objects from the game to be entered, which was already saying something given the large number of one-use clutter. The second, however, was a bit more complex. When you entered the first screen, it had a message something along the lines of "Protection Ace of Hearts over Three of Clubs First Hole". This could be disregarded, and if one tried to enter the hedge maze without inputting a code with the F keys, the game would say "YOU DIDN'T ANSWER THE QUESTION" and smite you. It turned out the manual told what the question is, and the game came with a number of hole-punched playing cards. Only by correctly laying the cards over each other and examining a hole could you figure out the required code to get on with it.
* Infogrames' original ''[[Alone in the Dark]]'' series had this, and notably ratcheted it up in the second game. The first required two objects from the game to be entered, which was already saying something given the large number of one-use clutter. The second, however, was a bit more complex. When you entered the first screen, it had a message something along the lines of "Protection Ace of Hearts over Three of Clubs First Hole". This could be disregarded, and if one tried to enter the hedge maze without inputting a code with the F keys, the game would say "YOU DIDN'T ANSWER THE QUESTION" and smite you. It turned out the manual told what the question is, and the game came with a number of hole-punched playing cards. Only by correctly laying the cards over each other and examining a hole could you figure out the required code to get on with it.
* In ''Vette!'', you are a given a question whose answer is in the manual. If you incorrectly answer three times, the game allows you to play, but with severely crippled gameplay(eg can't go above 80 mph), and after a certain time, it ends with the message "You are driving a stolen Vette".
* In ''Vette!'', you are a given a question whose answer is in the manual. If you incorrectly answer three times, the game allows you to play, but with severely crippled gameplay (e.g. can't go above 80 mph), and after a certain time, it ends with the message "You are driving a stolen Vette".
* ''F/A-18 Hornet'' had you answer a question from its rather large flight manual before starting a mission.
* ''F/A-18 Hornet'' had you answer a question from its rather large flight manual before starting a mission.
* The Elder Scrolls: Arena, the first game of the series, requires you to answer questions about spells in the known Spellbook part of the manual before leaving the first dungeon. Recently, Bethesda allowed the game to be downloaded for free—and did not remove the Copy Protection.
* The Elder Scrolls: Arena, the first game of the series, requires you to answer questions about spells in the known Spellbook part of the manual before leaving the first dungeon. Recently, Bethesda allowed the game to be downloaded for free—and did not remove the Copy Protection.
Line 93: Line 93:
* Particularly before the advent of CDs and DVDs, console systems traditionally used media that could not be easily obtained or created - if at all - by the public:
* Particularly before the advent of CDs and DVDs, console systems traditionally used media that could not be easily obtained or created - if at all - by the public:
* Eight-bit to 32-bit consoles including the Game Boy, Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, (Super) Nintendo Entertainment System and Nintendo 64 used proprietary cartridges that were relatively expensive. But by the time of the Game Boy Advance, third parties introduced compatible cartridges for playing homemade GBA games (which could also be used for pirated games, wink wink nudge nudge).
* Eight-bit to 32-bit consoles including the Game Boy, Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, (Super) Nintendo Entertainment System and Nintendo 64 used proprietary cartridges that were relatively expensive. But by the time of the Game Boy Advance, third parties introduced compatible cartridges for playing homemade GBA games (which could also be used for pirated games, wink wink nudge nudge).
** That's not all. The North American NES made use of a "lock-out chip" system called the NES10, composed of a chip on the console that would reset the CPU if it did not detect a corresponding key chip on the game card. Nintendo patented the design of the key chip so that no one else could legally manufacture them. The ugly thing about this system is it reused pins that, on the Japanese Famicom, provided support for on-cartridge co-processors. While most imported games can bypass the lockout chip with an adapter containing the necessary key chip, the repurposed pins cause games equipped with these co-processors to not work at all.
** That's not all. The North American NES made use of a "lockout chip" system called the CIC, composed of a chip on the console that would reset the CPU if it did not detect a corresponding key chip on the game card. Nintendo patented the design of the key chip so that no one else could legally manufacture them.
** Depending on which sources you believe, the primary intent of the lock-out chip wasn't copy protection. Instead, the system was designed to allow Nintendo to keep tight control over who could release games for the platform and extract heavy licensing fees from third party developers. This was also the mechanism Nintendo used to enforce their infamous [[Censorship Bureau|censorship and quality control regime]], keeping out the porn games and low quality software that [[The Great Video Game Crash of 1983|caused recurring PR nightmares for Atari.]] The copy protection was just a nice side effect...
** Depending on which sources you believe, the primary intent of the lock-out chip wasn't copy protection. Instead, the system was designed to allow Nintendo to keep tight control over who could release games for the platform and extract heavy licensing fees from third party developers. This was also the mechanism Nintendo used to enforce their infamous [[Censorship Bureau|censorship and quality control regime]], keeping out the porn games and low quality software that [[The Great Video Game Crash of 1983|caused recurring PR nightmares for Atari.]] The copy protection was just a nice side effect...
** Some unlicensed games work around the lockout system by using special cartridges that piggyback on another game (like a Game Genie.) Also, Atari's Tengen division got themselves into a lawsuit by using social engineering and reverse engineering to create a key chip workaround called the "Rabbit Chip".
** Some unlicensed games work around the lockout system by using special cartridges that piggyback on another game (like a Game Genie.) Also, Atari's Tengen division got themselves into a lawsuit by using social engineering and reverse engineering to create a key chip workaround called the "Rabbit Chip".
** While the top-loading NES ommitted the chips, a similar, albeit more sophisticated system was used on the Super NES and Nintendo 64. Bootleg games still thrived on the Super NES, though not as much as it was in the NES days, and there were reportedly no bootleg cartridges for the N64 until recently when the CIC for it was reverse-engineered. There were however backup devices such as the Doctor V64 which used a legitimate N64 cartridge for authentication and loaded games off commodity CDs. While it was ostensibly marketed as an inexepensive development tool to test games on actual hardware, with a number of developers, notably [[Iguana Entertainment]], using Doctor V64s for developing their N64 games due to a shortage of official development kits from Nintendo, the V64 could easily be modified to run backups, and many resellers sold their V64s pre-modded.
** The same system was used in the Super NES and Nintendo 64. However, the top-loading NES II omitted the chips.
** The Game Boy is an interesting example, as it was designed more as a passive ''trademark protection'' scheme that relied more on their merry band of lawyers than actively shutting out any bootlegs, the theory being that bootleggers and developers of unlicensed games wouldn't dare display the '''Nintendo®''' logo lest be sued for trademark infringement, which was more easily enforcable in certain jurisdictions. If a copy of the logo was found on the cartridge ROM, the game loads, but using it as it is would make them an easy target for litigation. There is however a workaround taking advantage of a peculiarity on how the logo is checked and displayed: the Game Boy reads the boot logo twice--once to display it, and another to check if it matches the one on the boot ROM. Though this, unlicensed developers were able to subvert Nintendo's trademark protection by displaying their own logo on startup as a form of [[Plausible Deniability]], then load the Nintendo logo to pass the internal boot check.<ref>[http://fuji.drillspirits.net/?post=87 Neo Fuji: "go go logo"]</ref> Ironically enough, [[Argonaut Games]] demonstrated this to Nintendo, and rather than sue Argonaut for breaking their protection scheme, they invited them to develop 3D games. And the rest, as they say, [[Star Fox|is history]].
⚫
* The Sega Dreamcast could use a proprietary disc format called GD-ROM, which was essentially a dual-layer (1.3 GB) version of the CD-ROM format (multiple-layer discs would not become common until DVD); the system could load games off CDs, too, though, and many games could be fit on a standard CD or the game itself compressed to fit.
** In a similar vein to Nintendo, Sega used a similar trademark enforcement system on the [[Sega Genesis|Genesis]], aptly named "TradeMark Security System." The TMSS checks for the "SEGA" wordmark in various memory locations for a cartridge to boot, and if an unlicensed game has the necessary strings in the ROM, Sega can sue them for trademark infringement. This was however challenged in 1992 by Accolade when they were involved in a lawsuit concerning the use of Sega's trademarks on some of their games. The courts ruled in Accolade's favour, as the judges concluded that the required TMSS code took up 35 bytes while the rest of the game was wholly original content, and that Accolade's reverse-engineering to achieve compatibility with Sega hardware was a reasonably invocation of fair use.
⚫
** It wasn't ''meant'' to be able to load games off of CDs, they just screwed up royally while implementing the code for "multimedia enhanced CDs" in their music CD player firmware. The result: a no-mod-required method of playing copied discs.
** The [[Famicom Disk System]] also relied more on trademark enforcement than actual hardware or software-level protection. The disks, which were little more than a semi-custom variant of Mitsumi's Quick Disk, had '''NINTENDO''' molded at the bottom part of the disk, with the '''I''' and second '''N''' activating a switch which authenticated the game. [[Paper-Thin Disguise]]s ensued as with most pirated games, with the trademark being minced to "NINFENDO", "NINTEN", "NINJENDO", "INTEND" or even just "I N". Eventually, bootleggers simply just left indentations in the disk without the need to mold the Nintendo name or intentionally misspell it at all, making this scheme useless.
⚫
* The [[Sega Dreamcast]] used a proprietary disc format called GD-ROM, which had the pits packed more closely together allowing it to hold a maximum of 1GB of game data; the system could load games off CDs, too, though, and many games could be fit on a standard CD or the game itself compressed to fit.
⚫
** It wasn't ''meant'' to be able to load games off of CDs, they just screwed up royally while implementing the code for "multimedia enhanced CDs" in their music CD player firmware. The result: a no-mod-required method of playing copied discs. Both the commercial emulator [[Bleem!|Bleemcast]] and the Utopia boot disk took advantage of this exploit.
*** Technically, Dreamcast piracy wasn't quite as simple as copying the GD-ROM, which regular PC drives could not read. Dreamcast piracy involved first ripping the GD-ROM using special hardware (often the Dreamcast itself via hardware plugged into the modem slot), then some tricky work involving a boot track and multiple burn sessions for the CD-R. Once created, though, that CD-R could be easily copied and used on any Dreamcast.
*** Technically, Dreamcast piracy wasn't quite as simple as copying the GD-ROM, which regular PC drives could not read. Dreamcast piracy involved first ripping the GD-ROM using special hardware (often the Dreamcast itself via hardware plugged into the modem slot), then some tricky work involving a boot track and multiple burn sessions for the CD-R. Once created, though, that CD-R could be easily copied and used on any Dreamcast.
* The Sony PlayStation read a tracking pattern pressed onto the lead-in of official CDs, which cannot be reproduced normally. The PlayStation 2 uses a similar system. They will both refuse to read any disc that doesn't have a valid pattern.
* The Sony PlayStation read a tracking pattern pressed onto the lead-in of official CDs, which cannot be reproduced normally. The PlayStation 2 uses a similar system. They will both refuse to read any disc that doesn't have a valid pattern.
** The playstation mechanism was actually very clever, and made it completely impossible to burn a disc that would pass the protection ever. Unfortunately for Sony, there were points exposed where people could solder a chip in to override the attempt to read the signature and replace it with a valid one. People COULD press pirated discs once they figured out how the protection really worked, though, yielding the boot disc. Worse yet, it turns out that by using a single valid Playstation game and some quick swapping of the burned disc any reasonably dexterous person could play burned discs on a completely unmodded console. It takes some practice, but it's not that difficult.
** The PlayStation mechanism was actually very clever, and made it completely impossible to burn a disc that would pass the protection ever. Unfortunately for Sony, there were points exposed where people could solder a chip in to override the attempt to read the signature and replace it with a valid one. People COULD press pirated discs once they figured out how the protection really worked, though, yielding the boot disc. There were anecdotal reports of so-called "Hong Kong silvers" which would boot on an unmodified PlayStation, but it is uncertain as to whether they exist or not. While the likes of Datel were able to press PlayStation-compatible discs without Sony's blessing, it is unknown if bootleggers have managed to do so as well; given that there's so many modified PlayStations out there, it is more likely that they didn't even bother trying to reproduce the needed wobble. Worse yet, it turns out that by using a single valid PlayStation game and some quick swapping of the burned disc any reasonably dexterous person could play burned discs on a completely unmodded console. It takes some practice, but it's not that difficult.
*** The final evolution of this "swap trick" was the production of kits containing stickers to hold down the "lid open" sensors (so the console would not try to perform the security test again when the lid was opened to swap the discs), and boot discs that would pass the copy protection check, then stop the disc from spinning and wait patiently until the start button was pressed (so the user could swap in another disc at their leisure).
*** The final evolution of this "swap trick" was the production of kits containing stickers to hold down the "lid open" sensors (so the console would not try to perform the security test again when the lid was opened to swap the discs), and boot discs that would pass the copy protection check, then stop the disc from spinning and wait patiently until the start button was pressed (so the user could swap in another disc at their leisure).
** Contrary to what Sony's marketing wanted people to believe, the black undersides of a genuine PS1 disc was more of a red herring (or maybe just Everything is Cooler in Black) than anything else. The black coating wasn't technically ''necessary''; a number of games were released on bog-standard silver CDs. However, the black undersides did make a lot of people think that the discs were more special than they actually were.
** Contrary to what Sony's marketing wanted people to believe, the black undersides of a genuine PS1 disc was more of a red herring (or maybe just Everything is Cooler in Black) than anything else. The black coating wasn't technically ''necessary''; a number of games were released on bog-standard silver CDs. However, the black undersides did make a lot of people think that the discs were more special than they actually were.
Line 299: Line 302:
* ''[[Oregon Trail]] II'' normally has to load the oregon.dat file from the CD drive, but this can be easily circumvented by copying the file to the hard drive and instructing the INI to load it from there.
* ''[[Oregon Trail]] II'' normally has to load the oregon.dat file from the CD drive, but this can be easily circumvented by copying the file to the hard drive and instructing the INI to load it from there.
** This is actually true for most if not all [[Edutainment Game]]s. Their reasoning being 1: the customer base (mostly schools and libraries, as well as parents, who're buying the game for students) needs a way to make a backup of the game, seeing that the media will be mostly handled by kids, and 2: their software are rarely attractive to pirates anyway.
** This is actually true for most if not all [[Edutainment Game]]s. Their reasoning being 1: the customer base (mostly schools and libraries, as well as parents, who're buying the game for students) needs a way to make a backup of the game, seeing that the media will be mostly handled by kids, and 2: their software are rarely attractive to pirates anyway.
*** Except there were indeed pirates who did release children's games, but that is mostly a niche subject compared to other genres.
* Most modern CD/DVD-ROM games require the original disc, not a copy, to be present in the drive for the game to run. Such as the aformentioned Safedisc system. Not surprisingly, most of these games have illegal no-CD cracks, although they can be flaky at times.
* Most modern CD/DVD-ROM games require the original disc, not a copy, to be present in the drive for the game to run. Such as the aformentioned Safedisc system. Not surprisingly, most of these games have illegal no-CD cracks, although they can be flaky at times.
* ''Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project'' would make enemies tougher and the bosses invincible if the copyright code was modified.
* ''Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project'' would make enemies tougher and the bosses invincible if the copyright code was modified.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Copy_Protection"